


Midnight Reading II

by MegaBadBunny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bickering, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Ficandchips, Invasion of Privacy, Post-Episode: s02e05-06 Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, The Doctor is a Bit of a Prat, Trust Issues, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 02:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15184334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaBadBunny/pseuds/MegaBadBunny
Summary: Rose and the Doctor and a night full of trust issues.





	Midnight Reading II

There’s a grandfather clock in the Tyler flat—a tiny, weathered little thing tucked away somewhere in the depths of the family room, its lacquer long faded, its brass long tarnished, but its gong as resonant as ever it was—and it’s the loud-singing chime calling out  _midnight_ ,  _midnight_ ,  _midnight_  with every stroke that drowns out the sound of Rose’s footsteps before the Doctor has a chance to hear her approach.

“There’s a saying, you know,” her voice chirps up drily from the doorway, and the Doctor drops her journal and snaps round so quickly you’d think he was a wind-up toy. “About cats, and curiosity.”

Feeling suddenly guilty, the Doctor nudges the journal with his toe, pushing it just out of sight beneath Rose’s bed. He doesn’t know why he bothers, though; Rose’s cool stare informs him that she already saw him rifling through. She must have.

Panic floods his head in a candyfloss-fog.

( _Stupid grandfather clock_.)

“Good thing that doesn’t apply to Time Lords, eh?” the Doctor jokes feebly.

Rose’s eyebrows furrow in a glare.

The Doctor shakes himself. “Anyway, is that the end of shore leave, then?” he asks, breezing past Rose on his way out of her bedroom and toward the TARDIS parked in the family room. “Should be, goodness knows you were gone long enough. Started to wonder if you’d grown roots and sunk them into the soil somewhere. Like a tree or a potato or a shrub. A bush,” he says, turning round so he’s facing Rose as he walks backward into the family room. “A rose bush! That’s apt, eh?  _Gather ye rosebuds while ye may_ ,  _But he that dares not grasp the thorn_ /  _Should never crave the rose_ ,  _A rose is a rose is a rose_ …”

Rose does not smile.

The Doctor frowns impatiently. “Hmm! No appreciation of literature. Blame that on Jericho Street Junior School, shall we?” He snags his key from a wayward pocket and unlocks the TARDIS doors, shooting Rose a winning smile. “Maybe a visit from one of the Brontë’s would change the headmaster’s mind. A little trip to the 19th century, how’s that sound? Horses and carriages and ghosts and corsets, your favorite. Am I right?”

Rose merely crosses her arms in response.

“Yes? No?” the Doctor prompts. When Rose still doesn’t say anything, her mouth pursed in a thin, tight line, the Doctor leans against the TARDIS, shoving his hands in his pockets so Rose can’t see them fidget. “Doesn’t have to be Victorian England again, of course. Doesn’t have to be England at all. Doesn’t even have to be Earth. Doesn’t even have to be the Milky Way galaxy—”

“This gonna be over any time soon?” Rose interrupts, her voice short. “Cos I’d like to get on with the scolding, if you don’t mind.”

“Fair point. You were gone far too long, young lady,” the Doctor says with mock-sternness, a tone that usually makes Rose fight to keep the grin off her face. It has no such effect now. “See to it that it doesn’t happen again. We’re on a sharp schedule, you know.”

He pulls open the TARDIS doors and steps inside before she has a chance to reply.

(Like that would stop her.)

“Look, I don’t think I ask for all that much,” Rose continues as if the Doctor had never spoken, following after him as he gallops up the ramp. “We go where you want to go, do what you want to do. And I get it. You’re the captain. It’s your ship, your timetable, your rules. But I still have a handful of basic rights. Yeah?”

“Thought you just said it was my rules?” the Doctor says under his breath.

He glances up at Rose to gauge her reaction. Big mistake; her glare has sharpened even further, if that’s possible. The Doctor tries not to flinch.

“Anyway, you were saying?” he asks politely.

“I have a right to my privacy, Doctor,” Rose snaps. “Now, I know you like to pretend you don’t understand all of our quaint or primitive human customs, and that’s fine. You’ve spent however many hundreds of years around humans, you’d think by now you could just come out and admit already that we’re rubbing off on you, but if you want to keep on pretending and hiding behind your  _Whoops-I’m-just-an-alien-and-I-don’t-know-any-better_  act—great. I can pretend too.”

Scratching the back of his neck, the Doctor avoids her gaze.

“But you’ve got to know by now what a journal is,” Rose continues. “And it’s not like it was lying about in the open. It was hidden. You had to go looking for it. You knew what would be inside it. You knew that information would be private. And you  _sure as hell_  know what privacy is.”

Ouch. The Doctor nods. “Fair enough,” he says. Then, brightening: “You’re right; I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

He gestures to the console. “Now, shall we—?”

“Why were you reading my diary, anyway?”

Thin excuses and half-cooked thoughts flutter frantically through the Doctor’s mind, but none of them can hold up under the scrutiny of Rose’s glare. “Does it matter?” he asks, darting around the console to push buttons and throw levers.

“What do you mean,  _does it matter_? Of course it matters! I deserve to know why you violated my privacy!”

“Ooh,  _violate_ , that’s a bit harsh. I’d think something more along the lines of  _barely-peeked-at_ or  _hardly-even-scanned_  or  _gently-prodded_  would be more appropriate to the situation.”

The glass column hums and glows green, casting sickly shadows over Rose’s face. “I don’t care what word you want to use, you still—”

“That’s a shame, language is such a fascinating and integral tool, its misuse shouldn’t be considered lightly.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rose snaps, eyes fluttering shut in impatience. “Enough with the jokes and the deflections already! Can’t you at least do me the courtesy of answering my questions? Can’t you take me seriously for just two bloody seconds?”

Abashed, the Doctor falls quiet, and for several moments, the only sound between them is the TARDIS’ gentle background buzz. (Is he just imagining it, or is the pitch slightly off, almost like the TARDIS is just as displeased with him as Rose is? That would just put the cherry atop the sundae, wouldn’t it, his ship and his companion both ganging up on him? He’ll have to have a word with the mutinous machine later.)

“I take you plenty seriously,” he mumbles.

“I mean, isn’t it enough that I just lost Mickey and my dad, all in one go?” Rose asks, and the Doctor is startled to see that her eyes looks suspiciously wet now, her lashes rimmed with thick-pearled tears. “They both left me, they just  _left_ , just like everyone else, and I thought you of all people would understand how that feels. I thought I could  _trust_ —”

Rose cuts herself off with a sharp shake of the head, her lower lip trembling violently with the effort of not-crying. Aghast, the Doctor reaches out a tentative hand to comfort her, but she jerks back before he makes contact, like even the thought of his touch is enough to burn. Wordlessly, she turns on her heel and stomps away, leaving the Doctor alone in the console room, with only his thoughts and an ever-growing sense of discomfort crawling sickly in his belly.

Ah, but of course this isn’t really about his transgression at all, is it? Especially not in the light of so many bigger, bolder, more important things. After all, the shadow of their time in the parallel universe must still weigh heavily on her; it was only a few short days ago, and the loss of Mickey is so fresh, not to mention saying goodbye to your father, again, forever,  _again_ , can’t be an easy thing to bear. Probably she still needs some time to adjust, and heal, and recover.

(That’s what humans do, yes? Take a moment, then  _wham_ , snap right back like the springy little rubber bands they are? She’ll be right as rain in a few minutes. Just a few minutes.

Right?)

The Doctor waits.

***

A few minutes stretches into an hour becomes several turns into overnight, and at that time it occurs to the Doctor that maybe he should, well. Speed things along, so to speak. The universe isn’t going to explore itself, and his legs itch to run.

(Certainly it’s just because they’ve stood still for so long; definitely it’s got nothing to do with anything else. Positively unrelated to feelings of guilt buried in a shallow grave. Probably. Maybe.)

Still, perhaps a peace offering is in order. He’s learned that Rose is not immune to bribery, especially bribery of the food-related variety, so it’s with a handful of delicious-smelling cheese toastie that he sidles up to her door. He reaches straight for the handle but draws back, thinking of their conversation the night before— _remember_ privacy _, Doctor_?—and knocks instead, feeling absurdly proud of himself. What a considerate fellow he is, when he has the mind to be.

Eight seconds tick by with no response. Speaking of  _rude_. Just how long does she plan to keep him waiting? Huffing in impatience, the Doctor knocks again.

“What?” snaps Rose’s voice, muffled and thick-sounding through the heavy wooden door.

“Good morning to you too,” replies the Doctor cheerfully. “Fancy a nice bit of breakfast before we head out for the day?”

“No. Go away.”

The words sting a little, but the Doctor brushes it off. “But breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn’t it? Well no, it’s not, it’s actually lunch, but no reason to pit two perfectly good meals against each other. At any rate, you should come out and have some. Doctor’s orders.”

“Leave me alone.”

This time the words hit like a slap to the face. Frowning, the Doctor reaches for the door handle again, not half-tempted to throw the damn thing open and demand to know what’s gotten into her, but he stops himself. There’s no competing with Rose once she’s really dug her heels in about something. She puts down roots worse than a mountain, and just as difficult to budge. He’s got no chance going on like this.

(Still, he’s stubborn enough himself.)

Leaning against the door, he takes a bite of Rose’s cheese toastie, chewing  _just_  loud enough that Rose can hear. The savory scent of melted cheese mingles with the nutty aroma of melted butter and burnt-just-right toast and the Doctor breathes it in with a grin, knowing the smells will reach Rose soon. He envisions how her eyes will glaze over as her mouth waters, can practically make out the rumbling growls of her hungry stomach from here.

“Sure thing,” he says, his voice bright as ever around a mouthful of sandwich. “But just so you know…there’s toasted cheese involved.”

A few seconds pass and the door pops open  _just_  a smidge, exposing only a sliver of Rose’s body as, scowling, she looks the Doctor up and down, suspiciously gauging him. When he just smiles beatifically back at her, her scowl deepens. Swallowing, the Doctor opens his mouth to take another bite, but Rose snatches the sandwich out of his hands faster than he can blink, retreating back to her room without another word.

Chuckling, the Doctor pushes the door open and follows after her. “A little hungry after all, were we?”

Rose glares at him over the sandwich. “Shut up.”

“And such a lovely morning person, too.”

“What part of  _leave me alone_  didn’t you understand?” Rose asks irritably before taking another bite.

“Ah, let’s see—that would probably be the  _leave_ , the  _me_ , and last but not least, the  _alone_ ,” the Doctor counts off, sauntering over to Rose’s bed so he can throw himself down with a dramatic sigh, feet crossed at the ankles, fingers laced behind his head. “It’s not optional, I’m afraid. Too many places to see, people to meet, things to try—”

“Privacy to invade,” Rose adds.

“Ah, but is that really the thing you’re upset about, or is it all that other nasty business you mentioned?”

Rose stares at him as she chews. “No,” she says, swallowing. “It’s you.”

“Well, fine, but that isn’t all of it. What about that slip of a Freudian nature you had last night, bringing up all that stuff that just happened in the other universe? Mickey, your dad, other blokes who leave you, trust issues in general—”

“Wow,” says Rose flatly, swallowing down the last of the sandwich. “Thanks for your careful handling of such sensitive issues.”

“Point is, seems like you might need to, you know.” The Doctor shifts on the bed, only a little uncomfortably. “Talk to someone. About things.”

Eyebrow raised in surprise, Rose polishes off the last of the sandwich. “You volunteering?”

“Why not? I’m just as qualified a  _someone_  as anyone else.”

Rose hums, whether in agreement or amusement, the Doctor can’t tell. Arms cross in front of her chest defensively, as if she’s protecting herself; against what, the Doctor can’t imagine.

“Would it be better if you were the one lying on the bed?” the Doctor asks. “Pretend it’s a couch, I grab my glasses and a clipboard, we get in a proper session with Dr. Doctor, Therapist Extraordinaire?”

“No thanks,” Rose says wryly.  

“Are you certain? I’m quite good at making all the appropriate noises, got a whole range of  _Mm-Hm’s_  and  _Interesting’s_  and  _How Does That Make You Feel’s_ in my repertoire.”

Rose shakes her head and the Doctor quiets, waiting. Patiently.

(Well, not patiently, but as close as he can get. His foot only jiggles a little in protest.)

“Why did you do it?” Rose asks, her voice small. “Go looking for my diary, I mean.”

The Doctor’s mind races for excuses but once again comes up empty,  _damn it_. “I thought we were going to talk about you.”

“Yeah, and  _I_ want to talk about why you went nosing through my private things,” Rose says stubbornly. “And don’t you dare bring my dad or Mickey into it again,” she says, holding up a finger in warning as the Doctor prepares to speak. “That hurt isn’t yours. You don’t get to go poking around in it. Not without my permission. Understand?”

He wants to argue, but the Doctor forces himself to nod instead, inwardly scrambling to find any other possible escape from what he knows is coming next.

Drinking in a deep, calming breath, Rose tries again. “Just tell me why you did it,” she says. “Please, Doctor.”

The Doctor shrugs, playing for time. “I was curious.”

“About what?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

“Just…things,” he replies lamely.

He looks up to find Rose watching him, but her glare isn’t anywhere near as sharp or hot as it was in the console room the night before. Instead, she just seems sort of…tired. Spent. Wan, somehow. Or no, worse—disappointed.

And there it is again (or still, or always), that burning urge to soothe away Rose Tyler’s hurt no matter what the cost. Reapers and regeneration and Daleks gone free and really, how much can a Time Lord give?

More, apparently. Silently, the Doctor curses himself.

“You seemed rather disappointed,” he says, his words slow and deliberate, careful, soldiers tiptoeing around a field full of landmines. “At the resolution of our last adventure.”

“I just said I don’t want to talk about Mickey or my dad.”

“True, and I can respect that, but you also asked me why I violated your privacy, and I can’t really discuss one without the other. Sort of a package deal.”

Rose’s brow knits in confusion. “Why?”

Swallowing hard, the Doctor sits up in the bed, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. “Reasons,” he says, tugging at his necktie, which in the last few minutes seems to have tightened around his neck like a hangman’s noose. “Very good reasons, I assure you. Only the most rational of reasons. Only the most logical, reasonably rational of reasons—”

“Doctor,” Rose warns.

He sighs in defeat. He can  _feel_  Rose’s patience running out, trickling inexorably downward like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass. He can’t really say he blames her.

“It’s just…you clearly care for both of them quite a lot. As well you should,” the Doctor adds quickly. “A parallel version of your father is still, in many ways, your father, and even if Mickey is an idiot—”

“He’s not, but continue.”

“—he is still your oldest and dearest friend, and, if I were pressed to say it, a good man,” the Doctor continues. “And…it would have made sense if you had wanted to stay behind, is all.”

He can’t meet her eyes anymore. “In the other universe, I mean,” he adds. “With them.”

A few seconds trickle by, and he can’t take the silence any longer. It’s suffocating. Swallowing, the Doctor chances a look back up at Rose, expecting to see realization dawn at any moment as the full impact of his truth dawns on her. Surely her face has softened in the light of his tender confession, her expression warmed.

It hasn’t.

“So what, things get a little rough and suddenly you’re afraid I’m going to run off? That it?” Rose asks, her voice sharp.

The Doctor blinks in surprise. “I don’t know if  _fear_  factors into the equation, but as a man of science, one has to consider all potential outcomes to any given—”

“You thought I was going to leave you,” Rose accuses, and now her voice is flat.

“I thought it was a distinct possibility.”

“And it never occurred to you that—oh, I don’t know—you should just consider  _asking_  me?”

“Well, sure, if you want to do things the easy way,” the Doctor jokes feebly. “Besides, it isn’t as if I found anything particularly useful in there, same as last time. I mean, what’s the point of keeping a journal if you never update it?”

Rose’s eyes widen. “ _Last time_? You mean this isn’t even the first time you’ve—”

“Nope, and you can spare your breath,” says the Doctor, bouncing up from the bed as if his hearts aren’t racing each other in a mad dash to escape his ribcage. “Been around the universe a few times, met all the great philosophers, took classes on ethics that lasted longer than your lifespan, and I’m neither interested in nor in need of a lecture on morality from one unreasonably-perturbed and barely-matured human, so if you’ll excuse me—”

“No,” Rose says loudly, blocking the Doctor’s path to her bedroom door. “No, I  _won’t_  excuse you,” she proclaims, advancing on the Doctor with a pointed finger jabbing into his chest until he’s scurrying back away from her, “and I  _won’t_  excuse your actions, and I  _won’t_  just sweep this under the rug, and you’re  _not_  allowed to get defensive with me, and you’re  _not_ gonna worm out of this, not this time!”

Advancing on him until they’re standing practically nose-to-nose, near as they can with the height discrepancy, Rose corners the Doctor against the opposite wall of her bedroom until his spine hits the coral with a smack, his hands held out in a helpless plea for peace.

“Now you listen to me,” Rose spits out. “If I ever left—and that’s a big  _if_ , or at least it was before, but now I’m not so sure, not with the way you’re behaving like the universe’s biggest prat— _if_  I ever left you, it wouldn’t be because of my dad, or Mickey, or some scary or awful thing that happened on one of our adventures, okay? It wouldn’t be something big and dramatic and definitely nothing to do with monsters or anything outside of the two of us. It would be because of  _you._ ”

Pulse thundering madly in his ears, the Doctor parts his lips, certain that something satisfyingly sharp and incisive will rise to his defense, but nothing does, because even his treacherous body seems to be taking Rose’s side right now.

“Do you understand?” Rose asks, pleading. “I’m in this with you—I’m in it  _for_  you—but it doesn’t work without trust. I have to know that you trust me. And I can’t do this if I can’t trust you.”

The Doctor’s hearts sink. He may have failed to forge his words into weapons, but Rose doesn’t seem to have any such trouble right now. She may as well have stabbed him in the gut.

“You really don’t think you can trust me?” he asks quietly.

Now it’s Rose’s turn to break their gaze. Her finger jabs into his chest again, but halfheartedly this time, a limp and dejected gesture. “For the big stuff, of course. But that’s not the only stuff that matters. The little things are important too, Doctor. Yeah?”

Slowly, the Doctor nods. “Yep.”

“And don’t go acting all pathetic and trying to make me feel bad,” Rose says stubbornly, but she isn’t jabbing him in the chest anymore. Instead, her fist is curling and uncurling against his necktie, nervous fingers resisting the urge to soothe. “You did something wrong, and I have every right to call you out on it. Right?”

“Yep.”

“And I’m not gonna feel bad about it. Okay?”

The Doctor nods, his head suddenly heavy. “Yep.”

Uncertain, Rose bites her lip, searching the Doctor’s face. But whatever she’s looking for, she must not find it, because soon her expression darkens, and she pulls away, sighing in disappointment. And for some reason, that makes the Doctor feel even worse somehow.

(There it is again—that driving urge to make Rose Tyler happy no matter what. What in all the hells is  _wrong_  with him?)

“I suppose it was rather a silly exercise in prevarication,” the Doctor blurts out before Rose can step too far back. “Going through your private things, I mean,” he explains when Rose’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “Nosing about for answers instead of simply asking for them.”

Rose smiles, but there’s little joy in it—instead, if the Doctor had to label the look, he’d call it  _relief_.

“At the very least, it was an inefficient and inconvenient method of obtaining information,” the Doctor rushes, lest the sincerity of the moment overwhelm him with its saccharine-sweet stickiness. “But, erm. There was the unfortunate side effect of invading your privacy and compromising your trust as well, and for that—”

He swallows, and winces at the unpleasant sensation of his pride sticking in his throat on the way down.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It won’t happen again,” he adds. “Ever,” he clarifies. And he means it.

Rose’s smile deepens. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The Doctor manages a weak grin in return. “You’re welcome, Rose.”

Clearing his throat, he deposits his hands safely in his pockets. “And now that all that nasty business is out of the way, what do you say we take a nice little holiday somewhere, eh? Someplace nice and beachy, one of those places you like with the too-bright skies and irritating sand and that unfortunate perpetual coconutty-sunscreen smell, what do you say? Up for a little fun in the sun?”

“Actually, I could still do with a bit of rest,” Rose confesses. “And I still need to go back to give a proper goodbye to Mum, and pick up my things. But, maybe after?”

“Of course, of course,” the Doctor nods, pushing past her and feeling awfully silly and vulnerable all of a sudden. “I’ll just be off, then, and you can track me down when you’re ready, I’m sure you’ll know where to find me, clever thing that you are—”

“Erm, excuse me,” says Rose, and before the Doctor knows it, her hand has curled around his, preventing him from leaving once again. “I don’t remember giving you permission to go.”

The Doctor piques an eyebrow in amusement. “I don’t remember needing it.”

“You caused me a right foul night, Doctor. Tossed and turned the whole bloody time. The least you can do is make up for it with a good snuggle.”

He shoots Rose a mock-glare, but she just grins up at him in amusement, her tongue poking between her teeth like it often does, teasing him for some infuriating reason he has yet to grasp. It makes it difficult for him to refuse her request, somehow.

(It’s especially difficult since he suspects she’s doing it for his sake as much as hers.)

With a long-suffering sigh, the Doctor surrenders to Rose’s pull, allowing her to guide him back to her bed. With a hum of resignation, he toes off his shoes and sheds his jacket, and it’s with a grunt of impatience that he climbs into the bed after, offering no resistance when she tugs his arms in a hug around her frame. Rose snuggles back against him and if he were the type to sleep much, the Doctor imagines it would be very easy to drift off like this, lulled into an easy slumber by Rose’s lengthening breaths and the comforting smell of her hair beneath his nose. As it is, he allows himself to relax a little, soothed by Rose’s muscles loosening under his arms.

“Good night, Rose,” he says quietly.

She’s already asleep.

 


End file.
